Gardai have lashed out at proposal by a garda think tank to cut special allowances.

Travel and Subsistence payments are made to officers who must work on a temporary basis further than 3.22 kilometres from their station.

The Policing Authority said that this is blocking its plan to revolutionise An Garda Siochana’s roster system.

The think tank wants Garda top brass to implement a divisional model of policing as opposed to the current station based system.

A report said: “The Divisional model is based on a county-wide vision of policing, and yet Gardai continue to be assigned to stations rather than divisions, and any assignment further than two miles incurs travel and subsistence allowances.

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“Not only does this embed an unnecessary cost into the Divisional Model, it is also impractical for managers to deploy their resources efficiently across stations.

“A Superintendent that is short staffed in one of the stations in their jurisdiction should not be obliged to incur additional costs to that gap, either through overtime or travel and subsistence payments when the reassignment is simply from, for example, Tullow to Carlow, a mere 15km away.”

The Policing Authority said that the solution being explored at present is a “more complicated system than it needs to be”.

They added: “The existence of allowances that appear to carry little benefit to the organisation also embeds inefficiency into the salary budget.”

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John O’Keeffe, spokesman for the GRA, representing rank and file gardai has slammed the proposal saying it will leave gardai out of pocket.

He said: “Travel and subsistence payments are statutorily based and are in existence since the foundation of the State.

“Similar payments are common across the Public Service and are a minor compensation for out of pocket expenses incurred as a result of having to use one’s own private car for duty or having to purchase food or a meal when not at ones normal place of work or avail of overnight accommodation.

“Garda members can and have been deployed anywhere in the State at short notice and are liable to being recalled to duty at any time. There are therefore very good reasons why these out of pocket expenses should not be personally incurred by any of our members.”